When I think of a tea party I immediately think of little tea cakes, fancy teacups, pretty flowers, and of course French macarons! Don’t you? I wanted to make this photoshoot full of all of those things and more! I also wanted to add a little bit of Valentine flair without being cheesy about it. Nothing wrong with cheesy Valentine’s Day photoshoots but for this one I wanted hints of Vday and pops of pinks (besides my hair!😂)

HOW TO THROW A VALENTINE'S DAY THEMED TEA PARTY UNDER $50

HOW DID YOU THROW A FANCY TEA PARTY FOR UNDER $50?

Okay okay! I’ll answer your burning question because this set up def doesn’t look like it’s under $50. If you’re familiar with French macarons you know they go for about $2 - $2.50 which is hella expensive if you want a photo with a $hit ton of macarons in it. Therefore, I had to get creative…

MACARONS FROM TRADER JOE’S ARE DEFINITELY WORTH IT!

Way back when I had remembered seeing a box of frozen macarons at Trader Joe’s as well as Costco! So I decided to check out Trader Joe’s first and good lord y’all. I freaking SCORED. If you haven’t checked out the frozen food section at Trader Joe’s you’re missing out; real food and treats! Not only did I find macarons, but I found little lemon bars and even some cute tea cakes to go on my Target dollar section heart tower. Update: I actually found some amazing heart macarons from Costco too a couple weeks later and they’re awesome too. I wrote a full blog post on them here.

Here’s exactly what I ended up getting. I know seeing what the boxes look like to items helps tremendously. They were all next to each other too so you don’t have to run up and down the aisle on a treasure hunt! Additionally, each box was under $7 some even being $4.99!

Trader Joe's frozen sweet treats section

WHERE IS ALL THE EXTRA DECOR FROM?

Now let’s talk about the gorgeous pieces I used to put everything from Trader Joe’s on! Y’all are sleeping on the Target dollar section. For real.. I snagged these little cake stands from Target last year and then this year I was able to get the heart tower. It came in white too but when I was able to stop by Target this was the only one left!

Here are some of my favorites from Target!

CLICK A PHOTO BELOW TO SHOP

HOW TO TIE EVERYTHING TOGETHER

Pay attention to detail! This helps make things look more put together and honestly more expensive. Not that you need everything to look more expensive but when I said all this was under $50 I bet you didn’t believe it. I put the lemon bars on the big cake stand and felt like they were too bare and alone. I thought hmmm what could I do to make them more visually pleasing and not just lemon bars on a dish. Add some lemon! Even a spring of mint of rosemary would have done the trick! Then I felt like the two random yellow macarons looked weird alone so I paired them with the lemon bars and lemon slices as well and it ended up looking so cute and well put together.

All the other treats were easy to place on the cake stand and heart tower but then I still felt like things weren’t cohesively connecting. Y’all I’ve always been like this and been able to see things come together. I blame my 8 years of art and photography growing up! I decided to grab some conversation hearts and toss them on the table. This is something I tend to do, toss whatever I’m working with on the table. I did this with rice krispies for my heart rice krispie recipe images.

Oh and another pro tip is to buy your fresh flowers at Trader Joe’s because they are super affordable! These roses were $5.99 and this bushel of eucalyptus was $2.99!

SPILL THE TEA ON THE TEA

I loooove drinking tea. I’m kind of obsessed with it. Some of my favorites are loose leaf from TeaSip! You can find my full review on TeaSip here. Some other tea brands I love you can grab at the grocery store are: Tazo, Bigelow, Celestial, and pretty much everything from Trader Joe’s! Add in some honey and lemon and you’re living like the Bridgertons.

EVEN MY OUTFIT WAS AFFORDABLE

I wanted to share the details on my outfit as well. It’s super affordable and helped tie the entire photoshoot together. This top is from Shein and only $17. I also snagged this scarf from Shein as well and it was only $3.50!

Finally, I got this beret in a set of 4 from Amazon! I love styling them with all sorts of outfits and even hair styles! I actually have a video on different hair styles to wear with berets. You can check it out here.

Let me know if you do a similar photoshoot and tag your picture in the comments!

XOXO

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